Originally Posted by
ofjames
Forget about discussing Saipan, it's irrelevant to this thread, and everyone has their own minds made up about it for years, no one will change their opinion based on this crap talk.
I'd like to depart from opinions for a moment and focus on the facts,
In his playing career, Keane won 7 Premiership Titles, 4 FA Cups, 1 Champions League, 1 World Club Cup, 1 SPL Title, 1 Scottish League Cup and 66 caps for Ireland.
Besides that, he was the FAI 'player of the tournament' at USA1994 and must have captained his country more than 20 times. He also won the rarely achieved double of the PFA and Soccer Writers player of the year awards in England.
Furthermore, he captained Manchester United for 8 years (during the most succesful spell of any English club in history), and is regarded by all and sundry as one of the very, very best players in the history of the Premiership (rivalled only by the likes of Shearer, Henry and Cantona).
In light of this record, to suggest that Keano is anything other than one of Ireland's greatest ever sportsmen (let alone footballers) is just nonsense.
Alex Ferguson reckons Keane's the best player he's ever worked with, Ruud Van Nistelrooy reckons Keane was the greatest player he ever played with, but the FAI consider him not even worthy of mention in their list of so-called Irish greats. It beggars belief!!!!
Whatever your opinions are regarding Saipan, is there really anyone on this board that thinks Mark Kennedy is more worthy of inclusion as an 'irish great' than Roy Keane???